Still, as good as The Host is, Memories of Murder is better. In fact, it's one of the best serial killer/police procedurals out there and casts a heavy shadow over procedurals before and after, including David Fincher's Zodiac (2007), which feels like a direct offspring of this film.
In a film filled with gorgeous imagery used in the service of a disquieting story, its opening and closing scenes provide the most beautiful cards the film holds in its deck, dealing them out as bookends for the rest of the story. A golden field of wheat, peaceful and pastoral, harbors a secret disturbing and terrifying. A body lies molested, desecrated, and lifeless, hidden in a viaduct just beside the field. A detective, Park Doo-man (Kang-ho Song), shows up to investigate but the scene is quickly overrun by locals. Key evidence is trampled and a fresh footprint in the mud is destroyed by a tractor before forensics can show up. Detective Doo-man is clearly overwhelmed and in need of assistance, he just doesn't want to admit it.
Another detective, Seo Tae-Yoon (Sang-kyung Kim), is sent in from Seoul to assist with the investigation, much to Detective Doo-man's ire. He doesn't want help from a big city hotshot who will use science over instinct to solve the case. And there, in that basic setup, is the formula for every mediocre cop movie ever made: Rogue detective partnered with big city cop learns to live with new partner and work together. But not here. What's brilliant about Memories of Murder, is that it takes the audience's assumptions of where the story will go and dismisses them out of hand almost immediately after introducing them. It's brilliant because what director Joon-ho does is mirror what the detectives themselves are experiencing on the screen. Every ten or fifteen minutes, someone comes up with a theory, or notices a clue, and for the characters and the audience, it appears vital. Each time, the audience and detectives both think now they will get somewhere. But it never happens. Each new revelation leads nowhere and every second of every minute finds the detectives more frustrated than ever, and the audience enthralled. The expectations of the characters, like those of the audience, don't lead where they're expected.
Memories of Murder isn't about the serial killer at all. In fact, he's only seen for a brief moment, barely visible in the rain rushing towards a victim. It's about the detectives, it's about people living in fear, and perhaps more than anything else, it's about the idea that science and law and hard work should be able to make us safe and provide answers and yet, sometimes (often?), it doesn't. Not many police procedurals or serial killer movies can make claims to be about something far beyond the thrill of the hunt or the titillation of watching the serial killer enact his brutality upon a victim. Most serial killer movies make the serial killer himself the main attraction but here all we see are the victims, distanced from the viewer, trapped in time in the last moments of the horror they faced. We don't see their suffering, only their eternal peace. Memories of Murder takes a basic template for this genre and completely reworks it. It isn't just a different cop/killer movie, it's groundbreaking.
After Memories of Murder, Bong Joon-ho got the kind of freedom to make the movies he wanted that few directors get the opportunity to do and he didn't disappoint. His next film, The Host, also broke new ground, this time for monster movies, proving that genre didn't limit him in any perceptible way.
A few years later, David Fincher made Zodiac and it felt like a movie that couldn't exist without Memories of Murder paving the way. It did more than tip its hat to Joon-ho's masterpiece, it employed the same themes of powerlessness and took no relish in its victims' demise but kept a sympathetic distance for the sake of the characters and the viewers. Memories of Murder made that possible and it stands as one of the best police procedural/serial killer movies ever made.
Producers: Seoung-Jae Cha, Jae-Won Choi, Moo Ryung Kim, Kang-bok Lee, Jong-yun No Director: Bong Joon-ho Writer: Joon-ho Bong, Kwang-rim Kim, Sung Bo Shim Original Music: Tarô Iwashiro Cinematography: Hyung-ku Kim Film Editor: Sun-min Kim Production Designer: Seong-hie Ryu Cast:
By Greg Ferrara
SOURCES: Wikipedia
